


law of contagion

by katsidhe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Post-Episode: s13e23 Let the Good Times Roll, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 15:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsidhe/pseuds/katsidhe
Summary: Sam needs to find Dean. Or, what's the difference between a tool and an ally? Or, Sam and company, post-13.23.





	law of contagion

The week after Lucifer’s death doesn’t feel like Sam thought it would. 

To be fair, it’s not like he had a template, or anything specific in mind. Still, if he’d ever paused to consider it—not that he really had—he’d have guessed that something fundamental would shift. Maybe the sun would go out, or the sky would fall, or maybe he’d feel a little safer.

He did lose Dean to Michael, so maybe that counts as his super-special paradigm shift. Losing Dean has happened lots of times, though. That’s a problem he can tackle—a problem he and Cas are tackling, along with a thousand other day-to-day tasks; the new denizens of the bunker need everything from new identities to a laundry roster to library catalog numbers. Then there’s Nick, a shell of a man whose life Lucifer ruined just as indelibly as Sam’s. Sam checks on him every day. He tries not to examine his reasons for doing so too closely.

He and Cas spend the lion’s share of their time looking for any sign of Michael, mostly hitting roadblocks and dead-ends. Which means that when Rowena finally returns his third call and agrees to come to Kansas, Sam keeps his cautious optimism banked.

“We’ve been trying to scry him,” says Sam, a little weakly. Rowena paces around the spell circle—it’s a week of their best efforts, Cas’s geometrical precision and Sam’s cobbled improvisations. He feels its inadequacy in his bones, a heavy guilty weight in his stomach.

She produces a tiny jeweled purse—from where, Sam didn’t see—and throws a tiny pinch of white powder at the circle. It vaporizes instantly in a pitch-black cloud that smells of burnt meat.

“Ah,” she sighs. She watches the oily plume of smoke coil upward and flatten itself against the library ceiling.

Cas clears his throat. “Care to elaborate?”

She glances at him, then turns back to Sam. “The circle is fine work, but it’s simply not strong enough. What have you used as a focus?”

“Dean’s blood and hair,” Sam says. “Recent samples.”

Rowena nods. “Like calls to like. It’s a good effort. Sympathetic magic is powerful, but an archangel is more powerful still.”

“Can you make it work?” asks Sam.

She hesitates. “No,” she says flatly. “I can give it an extra kick, but it won’t be enough. Not on its own.”

“Then this is a waste,” says Cas.

“Not necessarily,” Rowena says. “A stronger focus might suffice—you’ve called upon the vessel, but not upon Michael himself. Now, if we have any archangel grace remaining—?”

Sam and Cas exchange a glance. “We used all we had for the rift,” says Cas.

Rowena _hmm'_ s delicately. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but, sometimes angels leave behind, ah, _traces_ , in the vessels they’ve taken.” She gives Sam a meaningful, apologetic look full of something too close to pity.

Sam swallows and turns to Cas instead. “It’s been a decade,” he says, voice lifting at the end without meaning to, almost a question. He’s not sure why he’s asking— _if_ he's asking—if he wants Cas to confirm or deny what he suspects. He’s not sure if it’s hope or something darker, a sinking feeling, crawling, sick.

Cas’s eyes flicker from Sam’s down to his chest and back up. “Any trace of Lucifer remaining in Sam would be so deeply buried as to make removal impossible,” he says. Decisive, brooking no argument. “Like trying to fish a piece of barbed wire from his heart without breaking the skin.”

Sam takes a deep breath to brace himself through the wave of— _he should want this to work_ —relief, nausea. It’s relief, it’s guilt. He _should_ want to have been carrying the solution to this latest quasi-apocalyptic dilemma within his soul all along. A living container for any spell ingredient—convenient one stop shop for blood, bone, grace.

“I see,” says Rowena. She gives Sam one more look—this one with thankfully more assessment than pity. “Then I’m afraid I can’t recommend a better option.”

Cas stares her down. “It’s not an option. We will not attempt it, and if you suggest so again—”

Options. “Wait,” says Sam. Options, vessels, spells. “I’ve got a better idea.”

_______

 

Sam trusts Rowena, but he’s not sure he trusts her to abstain from hexing Nick on sight. So she stays in the hallway.

Nick takes very little convincing. When Sam lays out the situation, he eyes the needle in Cas’s hands. Glances between the two of them standing over his cot. “And I’ll be fine?” he asks.

“Yes,” says Sam. "But it will hurt.” A lot, he thinks. 

The man’s a virtual prisoner, Sam reminds himself. He’s hardly in a position to bargain or argue with the people providing him food and medical care and security; they have an obligation, they must be careful not to pressure or harm him. 

Nick licks his lips and nods. “Let’s have it, then.”

Even so, Sam can’t fully quash a wrong, curling sense of satisfaction. Nick screams while Cas extracts the tattered remains of Lucifer.

_______

 

Rowena throws her head back, white eyes lighting up with purple fire. “Now, Samuel,” she purrs.

Sam grasps Rowena’s arms. Her skin is coal-hot. He braces his fingers against instinct and grips harder, until his knuckles go white.

Cas adds the vial of grace, begins to chant, sonorous and implacable. His power coils in and around them, binding, lifting.

Sam sees—

 

_A church full of blood, broken bodies in a pile, Dean wearing an unfamiliar smile and an unfamiliar suit, elbow deep in the chest of a young woman. Her mouth opens in a scream—a glimpse of inhuman teeth._

_He pauses, drops the girl aside, lets cringe and moan. His neck tilts on an unnatural angle, and he stares directly into Sam’s eyes._

_“It’s rude to eavesdrop. But since you’re here, I can give you a taste of what you came for.” He makes no move, just looks, and Sam is fixed to the spot. “Don’t you want to know what I’m planning?”_

_A burning pain, he’s burning, but Sam’s felt worse, he wants to know, he grits his teeth and stares right back, and Michael’s faint, beatific smile does not change—_

 

—“SAM!”

He smells smoke. Cas’s face snaps into focus, worried and pale and wide- eyed.

"I saw him,” Sam gasps. “He was—why did you stop, why did you end it—”

“You were burning—” Rowena, gripping his shoulder.

Sam wrenches away. “We were CLOSE, if you’d just waited another moment—”

Cas seizes him. His eyes are glittering, fury or grief. “I will not lose you. And I certainly will not lose you to your own self-destruction.”

Sometimes Cas’s attention is too sharp. Sometimes it feels too razor-honed, too intent, too much to bear. But sometimes it feels like it’s all Sam wants—to be seen, to be heard.

“We will try something else,” Cas growls. He yanks Sam into a rough embrace.

“We—we’ll try something else,” Sam stutters.

His fingers catch in the canvas of Cas’s trenchcoat.

“In case anyone was wondering, I’m fine,” says Rowena.

 _______

 

“I never did thank you, did I.” Rowena’s staring at the burnt remains of the herbs in the bowl. “You’ve done me a great service, Sam Winchester.”

His name rings with more power than it ought. The echo lingers unnaturally.

Sam has to swallow before he can speak. “I didn’t do anything. Dean was the one who killed him.”

Rowena shakes her head. “Not Dean alone, and not Michael alone. He was the instrument. You were the catalyst. You cast Lucifer down, you foiled him, you brought him to ruin. These things matter, in magic.”

She pauses and finally meets his eyes. Sam finds he can’t look away. She’s not smiling—she’s as solemn as Sam’s ever seen her. For a moment he thinks he sees something ancient.

“You have the talent,” she says. “It’s been a long time since I took a student, but I wouldn’t be opposed—”

“No,” Sam says firmly.

She shrugs elegantly. The jewels on her dress shift in the light. “If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written (too quickly) for the 2019 spnspringfling over on lj, for harplesscastiel! (and lightly edited for ao3 after I noticed I'd sent in a slightly old draft, oops)
> 
> There are a ton of splendid fics over there, so check it out.
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](https://katsidhe.tumblr.com/post/184209499413/fic-law-of-contagion)


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